The growing demand for organic solvents from end-use industries such as print-ink, pharmaceutical, and adhesive industry, has compelled producers of solvents to innovate their products to meet the needs of the end-use industries, reports Transparency Market Research in a new study. As the global market of solvents is dominated by large multinational companies, the lead manufacturers in the value chain are focused on providing consumers with innovative and environment friendly products. The key companies in the global solvents market are Celanese Corporation, ExxonMobil Corporation, BASF SE, Maruzen Petrochemical, Dow Chemical Company, Sasol Solvents, Solvay Chemicals, and Shell Chemical.

The demand for bio-based solvents has intensified in developed as well as emerging economies due to the growing awareness about air pollution control and environment protection. This has provided growth opportunities for manufacturers of bio-based solvents. To meet the requirements of consumers and end users, manufacturers are making high investments in research and development projects for product development. The sales of solvents will be dependent on how exclusively manufacturers innovate their products to make them differentiable from their competitors.

Growth of Manufacturing and Construction Industry in BRICS to Lift Demand for Solvents

Recent studies have evidenced that due to the investments made in infrastructural developments in the BRICS countries, the demand for paints and coatings is increasing substantially. The population explosion and strong economic growth has led to the development of residential and commercial infrastructure. As the demand for paints and coatings is increasing due to the development of infrastructure in these nations, the sale of solvents is also set to grow due to their usage in paints and coatings jobs for manufactured products.

Paints and coatings is expected to have the maximum share of 61.7% in the global market by 2018, due to which the solvents market is also reported to grow at a steady pace.

The demand for solvents is also high in the Asia Pacific region due to the growing demand for paints and coatings in this region. Asia Pacific is expected to account for 41.1% of the global market.

Development of Bio-Based Solvents to Provide Future Growth Opportunities to Manufacturers

The growing regulations regarding the use of organic solvents has opened up opportunities for the development of alternative solvents for manufacturers. As consumers are becoming more aware about solvent based products which are lenient toward the atmosphere as well as health, the manufacturers are being presented with lucrative opportunities to develop better environment friendly products such as green or bio-based solvents.

Price Volatility of Raw Materials to Hinder Global Demand

The fluctuating price of crude oil is expected to hinder the global market of solvents, says TMR. As the downstream derivatives of crude oil are the most commonly used solvents, the volatile price of crude oil is likely to slow down the market growth of solvents. Manufacturers find it difficult to maintain a single price level when the raw material price remains unstable, leading to a backward integration of the sales of the product. This also puts pressure on the profitability of the solvent manufacturers as the intermediate products produced from crude oil are their raw materials.

In spite of the price structure drawback of solvents, its demand is anticipated to grow at a steady pace by 2018. Europe is expected to dominate the global solvents market with a share of 26.2% by the end of 2018. By revenue, the global solvents market was worth US$26.15 bn in 2015 and is expected to reach US$29.27 bn by 2018.

The review has been based on the findings of a TMR report titled “Global Solvents Market – Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends and Forecast 2012 – 2018”